Okay, a confession here: I spent much of Earth Day today, a beautiful sunny day, outdoors. Away from my laptop computer. Away from wi-fi. It seemed a fitting way to celebrate the thirty-ninth annual Earth Day, riding my bike and enjoying cold beverages at a succession of locally-owned establishments.

One thought that kept coming back to my mind, though, as it does with so many “official” observances and holidays (Valentines’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Women’s History Month, Black History Month, and so on), is that we diminish the importance of the thing we honor and celebrate by limiting its observance to a single day or month. We ought to honor our loved ones and our moms every day. We should remember and celebrate the contributions of women and African Americans and other brave and trail-blazing people year ’round.

Or maybe I’m feeling guilty that I had this good story idea but spent the day doing other more frivolous things.

So, even though there’s only one hour left of the “official” Earth Day, here (after the break) is a crop of podcast offerings that may spark some practical lifestyle changes for greener living.

Public Radio show Living on Earth has an episode this week about Earth Day concert organizers’ hopes that hip-hop artists like The Roots will draw new young people into the environmental movement. Their podcast feed is here.

The “Better Process Podcast,” which focuses on manufacturing processes (and is part of the Podcaster News network) has an episode on green manufacturing.

Whimsically named Cephalopodcast (aren’t cephalopods things like snails?), a show about the ocean and about science education, is one of the participant presenters in Worldbridges.net‘s EarthCast 2008, a 24-hour Earth Day marathon.

The venerable San Francisco Chronicle has a podcast interview with Denis Hayes, who helped organize the very first Earth Day at Harvard in 1969. The audio is here. The Los Angeles Times also has a podcast about Earth Day with a local angle.

Grist.org features environmental news and commentary year-round, but for Earth Day they crank their podcast into high gear. This week’s topics include US Presidential candidates and climate change, renewable energy tax credits, and salmon fishing, among others.

Environmental publisher Island Press has a podcast series of interviews and recordings with its authors called Island Sounds.

The Caffination Podcast (“caffeine culture and technology news”) has an Earth Day episode about “green” tech tips, and even some green coffee news too.

Even the U.S. Government, in the guise of the Environmental Protection Agency, has its own Greentips Podcast. The feed is here, and topics range from Energy Star appliances, to pesticide use, to reducing your carbon footprint.

A curious entry that surprised me was General Motors’ Earth Day podcast on different fuel “solutions” for Chevy automobiles. While I am cynical about the “greenness” of their efforts, the podcast does focus on alternative sources for powering their cars and trucks, including hydrogen fuel cells, electric vehicles, ethanol, hybrid vehicles, and (gasp) reducing fuel consumption in traditional autos.

Even our Boston friend (and PodCamp evangelist) Christopher S. Penn has a special Earth Day episode of his daily Financial Aid Podcast. His angle is to focus on “both sides of green living” – the green of environmentalism, and the green of being financially savvy/responsible. The feed for the whole podcast series is here.

Finally, eco-podcast Green Living Ideas has a great interview about a company called SolarVPS, which does solar web hosting. (What a cool idea!). Green Living Ideas recently began using a solar web host themselves, and I am tempted to investigate that, too, to start to minimize our bigfoot-sized carbon footprint.

Do you have other ways of observing Earth Day throughout the year? Big things? Little adjustments? Let us know in the comments